


Tag

by malchanceux



Series: Red Hawk [2]
Category: Young Justice, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Evil!Tim, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 00:52:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malchanceux/pseuds/malchanceux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Red Hawk, kill Kid Flash. That's an order."</p><p>Tim looks back at Black Beetle, nods in affirmative before drawing a gun from his back holster. He rarely uses the weapon. Bullets, he's learned, can be tricky things with Meta's and vigilantes. Easy to miss; easy to be redirected.</p><p>Kid Flash won't be dodging bullets any time soon.</p><p>Red Hawk aims and pulls the trigger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tag

Red Hawk snarls in frustration, head darting around the empty warehouse like a bobble head doll. He was not trained to deal with such situations, such people, such  _speeds_.

A fist shoots out at his left, and Red Hawk barely dodges—futilely striking out a fist of his own—and realizes that the young hero is  _toying_ with him. Not even trying. That if he wanted, he could have hit Tim square in the face without an inkling of resistance—and Red Hawk seethes at the idea. But also. But also something else. Something other than rage bites and nibbles at the rim of Tim's’ patients.

"Missed me, missed me, now you gotta kiss me," the speedster—Kid Flash—sings out obnoxiously. Running and stopping in a seemingly random pattern. "Seriously though, Nightwing told me you were good. So far, from what I've seen, you're at  _best_ mediocre."

Red Hawk grits his teeth, grabs several throwing knives and tosses them—one at a time—as though trying to stake Kid Flash at the ankles. He times the heroes reactions, and memorizes his every movement.

"Too slow," Kid Flash chirps just a little too happily before shoving at Tim's shoulder. Not hard enough for him to fall, but hard enough to make him stumble. 

"Tag, you're it!"

Red Hawk smirks, pulls out another throwing knife and fingers the hilt almost excitedly.

"Tried that already, remember?" the speedster asks at his left. "Didn't really work out."

Tim counts back from five before throwing his knife. He hears a startled, pained yelp followed by a loud thud.

"Son of a— how did you—  _unnhhggg._ " 

Red Hawk watches with an excited satisfaction as the speedster cradles his calf, careful not to touch the sleek knife sticking through his ankle. Tim missed the bones and made it a clean cut, but Kid Flash still won't be running for a long while—won't be walking much either. Good. He won't meddle in Reach affairs for the time being, and his stalling tactics are put to an end. Red Hawk wonders how far out the rest of the child-hero team is.

Tim turns to leave—to round up the remaining human prisoners that the boy had tried to liberate, and bring them to their assigned Reach facility.

“Never gonna live this one down,” Kid Flash mumbles, voice strained from pain. “Got myself benched by a _kid_.”

Tim tries to ignore the obvious baiting, makes for the warehouses exit.

“But don’t— don’t count me out just yet.”

Red Hawk turns just in time to make out a pair of bolas before they crash into his body, trapping his arms and knocking him to the floor. He hits the concrete with a grunt, landing painfully on his side.

“Nightwing taught me that. Just for you. He said I might run into a squirt with a thing for knives.”

Tim rolls over onto his back, takes one, two, three deep breaths to calm his raging temper. He can only afford to be emotionally compromised so much—excitement can be tolerated, a tantrum can not.

“It does not appear his warnings helped you much.”

Kid Flash barks out a dry laugh, still in pain but sincerely finding humor in the situation. “Maybe. Or maybe not. You _are_ a little tied up at the moment.”

“This will not hold me for long,” Red Hawk says, already testing the ropes dexterity. “Nightwing did not teach you well enough.”

“Debbie Downer,” Kid Flash says half heartedly. Quiet falls between the two and Kid Flash looks up from his leg at a deadly serious Red Hawk.

“Who is... _Debbie?_ Is she another of your team?”

For a moment the speedster stares at Tim blankly, and he half expects _“Debbie”_ to materialize out of thin air and attack—to ambush him and slit his throat while he’s down. It isn’t until Kid Flash starts laughing hysterically that he catches on that he’s missing something.

“Oh God,” the hero huffs between bursts of laughter. “Ow, owowowowow I need to—need to stop, ow, leg ow ouch owie.”

But he does not. The laughing persists long past what Red Hawk feels is due. It takes a few moments, but his patients soon snaps like bone.

“ _What_ is so humorous?”

“You honestly,” more laughing, but it is becoming sedated. Kid Flash suddenly sounded very drained. No doubt contributed by his wounds. “You honestly don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Okay dude look, you need to take a minute and _watch TV_ or something. Read. Debbie Downer is kinda like a part of speech; it’s a term of phrase. It means you’re being a bucket of gloom. You know, not looking at the silver linings: being Mr. Negative. A _Debbie Downer._ ”

Tim lays there on the ground for a moment, absently pulling at the bolas while thinking what Kid Flash said through. It takes a minute, but Red Hawk eventually grasps the concept—he _gets_ it. His lips curl minutely at the corners; it’s funny, in a way. _Debbie Downer._ An amusing way to think. Tim wonders if there are other terms like that he’s never heard before, and thinks, _of course there is._

He wants to hear more.

“Yeah, see you got it right? Look at that little smile—you definitely got it. You might not watch Saturday Night Live, but you got the gist.”

Tim looks over at Kid Flash and sobers quickly. The speedster is huffing, out of breath, skin an unhealthy pale. He’s sweating and his voice portrays a sudden exhaustion. Red Hawk knows his wound will not kill him if treated properly, but it is most definitely doing a number on him.

And that’s fine; that is okay, Tim thinks to himself. Kid Flash is the enemy. He is _meant_ to inflict such pain on him.

Red Hawk presses his lips into a thin line, yanks and rips until the ropes fall away from him and he can stand once more. He has wasted enough time, the Young Justice team were on their way, and he needed to recover as many remaining humans that he could for the Scientist.

He turns to leave the young hero behind, but the deep, vibrating voice of his partner stops him short. It is a testament to how much the young hero got under his skin, for Tim to not have sensed his partners presence.

"Why is the human still alive?"

Red Hawk regards Black Beetle with the usual half bow in respect.

"I did not see a reason to kill him."

"We have lost three shipments in the past week because of this meat-sack, and you do not see a  _reason?_ "

"Those aren't shipments, those are  _people!_ "

Tim looks at Kid Flash over his shoulder, sees him struggling to stay sitting upright, to not puke, to not pass out—and yet he still speaks out so venomously and draws attention to himself over things that do not matter. Why _didn't_ Tim kill him? Why not do it now?

Tim does not move.

"Red Hawk, kill Kid Flash. That's an order."

Tim looks back at Black Beetle, nods in affirmative before drawing a gun from his back holster. He rarely uses the weapon. Bullets, he's learned, can be tricky things with Meta's and vigilantes. Easy to miss; easy to be redirected.

Kid Flash won't be dodging bullets any time soon—or ever, now.

Red Hawk aims and pulls the trigger.

He only has a second to dodge the barrage of batarangs thrown at him. A second more to brace for the following explosion.

Non-meta's could be so creative with their weaponry when given the proper resources.

Tim rolls, back flips, and side steps debris, putting his back to Black Beetle and holding a defensive stance. As the smoke clears and dust settles, the figures of a very angry Superboy, Nightwing, and Miss Martian stand ready at Kid Flashes aid—the bullet seemingly disposed of through telekinesis. Another reason why guns were a rare thing for Red Hawk.

"Your number may be greater, but do not mistake our abilities out matched." Black Beetle growls, forming a gruesome sword and moving to attack the teen heroes.

"Wait!" Tim barks out, stopping the Scarab in his tracks. "Our abilities may be greater, but our priority is the humans, not the vigilantes. We have wasted enough time—the shipment must be made, especially with how few we have left."

Black Beetle bares his teeth, an inhuman snarl jumping from his throat. His arm, however, returns to normal, and a boom tube soon opens from behind him. Red Hawk holsters his gun, sprints into the awaiting portal and does  _not_  look back at the distressed and perplexed heroes he leaves in his wake.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is the last bit I'll be posting I think. For now. The next part stops at a cliffhanger--like, a steep drop-off kind of cliffhanger. So I'm hesitant to post it without getting more actually written for this.


End file.
